llustration is afforded by an amendment of
1893 to the effect that "the killing of animals
without benumbing before the drawing of blood is
forbidden; this provision applies to every method
of slaughter and to every species of animals." Art.
25. Dodd, Modern Constitutions, II., 263. The
adoption of this amendment was an expression of
antisemitic prejudice.]

*455. Federal Control of the Cantons.*--After the analogy of the United
States, where the nation guarantees to each of the states a republican
form of government, the Swiss Confederation guarantees to the cantons
their territory, their sovereignty (within the limits fixed by the
fundamental law), their constitutions, the liberty and rights of their
people, and the privileges and powers which the people have conferred
upon those in authority. The cantons are empowered, and indeed
required, to call upon the Confederation for the guaranty of their
constitutions, and it is stipulated that such guaranty shall be
accorded in all instances where it can be shown that the constitution
in question contains nothing contrary to the provisions of the (p. 413)
federal constitution, that it assures the exercise of political rights
according to republican forms, that it has been ratified by the
people, and that it may be amended at any time by a majority of the
citizens.[597] A cantonal constitution which has not been accorded the
assent of the two houses of the federal assembly is inoperative; and
the same thing is true of even the minutest amendment. The control of
the federal government over the constitutional systems of the states
is thus more immediate, if not more effective, than in the United
States, where, after a state has been once admitted to the Union, the
federal power can reach its constitutional arrangements only through
the agency of the courts. Finally, in the event of insurrection the
government of the Confederation possesses a right to intervene in the
affairs of a canton, with or without a request for such intervention
by the constituted cantonal authorities. This right was exercised very
effectively upon the occasion of the Ticino disorders of 1889-1890.

[Footnote 597: Arts. 5 and 6. Dodd, Modern
Constitutions, II., 258.]

Like the American states, but unlike the German, the Swiss canto